Alcohol consumption in Europe - latest results

The BSI in Bonn has released the latest figs for alcohol consumption in Europe:

Per Capita Year Rankings:

1.Luxembourg = 12.6 L
2.Hungary= 11.4
3.Czech Republic= 11.0
4.Ireland= 10.8
5.Germany= 10.2
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Last were
Poland= 6.7
Estonia= 6.5
Malta and Sweden= 4.9

Sweden? At the bottom?

I think that that is per fluid oz and not alcohol content adjusted. A half liter of Polish vodka and a half liter of beer just don't equal.

I think in total, I drank 12L at Oktoberfest this year. Kind of puts it in perspective. I had as much in 1/26th year as the average yearly consumption in the most sodden country in Europe...!?

12L of beer or 12L of alcohol? The latter would mean about 240 Mass beer (assuming roughly 5 % alcohol content) - a tall order even for the most dedicated Oktoberfest addict...

If the study isn't oriented towards beer's ABV%, this would throw a wrench in it. When you assume... heh.

240 Mass is 5/week, or 15 US beers per week. Seems a lot considering the large number of non-drinkers and children, I doubt the drinking population is consuming 45-50 beers a week in Luxembourg. So probably it's not considering 200 proof ethanol.

Wonder what ABV% is their baseline... could well be wine and not beer. Then I wouldn't feel so bad ;-)

edit: if it really is volume, independent of ethanol content, the study is worthless...

Here´s the source:

http://www.spirituosen-verband.de/index.html

As you can see, it´s for TOTAL alcohol consumption per capita year. The totals can be broken down into subcategories of; 1. spirits, 2. beer, 3. wine.

Luxembourg takes the sweeps cause due to it´s heavy wine consumption (#1 with 6.7l)

Looking at alcohol consumption from Beer only then you get the following results (again, total alcohol per capita year):

#1.)Czech Republic = 6.2 L
2.)Ireland = 6.1
3.)Germany and Great Britain both each = 5.6

I also found it odd about Swedens low numbers, but from what I´ve heard, they don´t drink much outside the home because it´s too expensive. The figures in the study are from official sources so, I´d bet the "real" consumption in Sweden´s a lot higher, or maybe that´s why they have such a tradition of partying hard once they leave the country on vacation...

it's based on pure alcohol volume in a litre of the drink under consideration. For example If average annual per head consumption is 12 litres of pure alc than means in beer terms 12x20 litres of beer (beer having 5% alc per litre) = 240 litres of beer a year, or 4.165 litres of beer a week. If the 12 litres was all spirits that would mean an eighth of the volume of beer (spirits @40% alc per litre, eight times the concentration of beer) or about half a litre of vodka a week per head of the population. here's something about drinking in the UK, how per head consumption has picked up since the 1960s
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4306226.stm

edit: d'oh, after looking more at the web page I see it is normalized to L of 100% ethanol, tho it doesn't say so on the chart. From looking at the other charts (specifically the Germany one) you can see the pre-adjusted liters.

I do wonder how they get these statistics. Seems to me that Germans should drink more beer than that, but maybe it's just Bavaria. I wonder if it's a poll, a measure of tax on sold alcohol (where Oktoberfest would inflate Germany's numbers due to all the foreigners drinking beer here), or just from bars.

Regarding the BBC article, it's probably true that kids are drinking more. I doubt it is a direct result of housing prices but who knows. Same as the people saying "katrina was due to us burning fossil fuels" (which aren't actually fossils anyway). Just because two graphs point the same way doesn't mean they are related. I could just as easily say, the rising British drinking trend is responsible for the increase in hurricanes...

Luxembourg always gets a bad rap with the alcohol consumption. I didn't read the article, but these numbers are based on sales of alcohol, right?

Luxembourg has very cheap alcohol compare to the surrounding countries. I have a Luxembourgish friend who always buys a lot of wine to bring back to Munich. So it's not necessarily the citizens consuming it.

And we all know who consumes all the alcohol in Prague at their lads' weekends ...

Actually, The Czech Republic slid into top spot for beer consumption the year they separated from Slovakia. The Slovaks drink more wine and were holding them back.

Its hardly surprising Luxembourg are top though is it? Only about 14 people live there so if the local scallies get a few flagons of Scrumpy down their necks on a friday night its going to push the average right up.